I Don’t Deserve This!

You may have heard it before, but upon receiving an award, the late Jack Benny remarked, "I really don’t deserve this, but I have arthritis and I don’t deserve that either." Who can view all Christ suffered for us on the cross and still say, "I deserve this – God owes me this – I have earned this?" Who merits what Christ did on the cross? Here’s a question to chew on – if we can earn salvation and gain a right- standing with God on the basis of our own good deeds and behavior, why in the world did Jesus die on the cross? After showing "all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God" (Romans 3:23), Paul goes on to expound how God saves us by grace through faith in Christ. He employs a complex but clear argument to prove that no matter how good we are, we can’t be perfect enough to earn and merit right-standing with God; and conversely, no matter how badly we’ve sinned or how often or long, God has provided a way we can be "justified freely by His grace through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus" (Romans 3:24)! Verse 25 brings the cross where Christ died for our sins squarely into view when Paul declares that God "set [Jesus] forth as a propitiation by His blood through faith." Then in verse 26 the apostle goes on to declare that through this gospel scheme of redemption that required Christ dying on the cross as a substitute for sinners, God is both "just and the justifier of the one who has faith in Jesus." Paul’s explanation of the gospel plan goes on into Romans 4 where he sets forth the Old Testament patriarch Abraham as the prototype of how we are saved by grace through faith. Jews in Paul’s day prided them- selves on being Abraham’s physical descendants and placed great stock in having his blood in their veins. But in Romans 4:3 Paul quotes Genesis 15:16 to show that God declared Abraham righteous on the basis of his faith in God long before he was circumcised in Genesis 17! In Romans 4 Paul proves what matters is not having Abraham’s blood in our veins but Abraham’s faith in our hearts!

Now my friends, let us say what the apostle said. He argues that God declared Abraham righteous. On what basis? Because he deserved or merited it? Because he was circumcised? No! On the basis of faith! That’s what Paul said, so let us be unafraid to say it, too. But please exercise caution – we must not say more than the apostle said. Search carefully – the words "faith alone" are not found anywhere in the text as Paul argues how Abraham was declared righteous, no matter how many preachers seek to put them there. The fact of the matter is the only place in the entire New Testament where the words "faith alone" are found is James 2:24 where it is explicitly stated, in a discussion about Abraham’s faith, "You see then that a man is justified by works, and not by faith alone" (English Standard Version). Abraham had a dynamic, obedient faith (James 2:21-23), not merely a mental one. Read the text in James – it compliments, not contradicts, Paul’s exposition in Romans 4. The faith that justified Abraham before God was an obedient faith. That’s the kind of faith that justifies today. As He did for Abraham, God will account us as righteous when we trust Christ enough to obey what He commands us to do (Ephesians 2:8-9; Hebrews 5:9; Romans 1:5; Romans 6:3-4, 17-18). Pray tell, how is that earning salvation? 

Dan Gulley, Smithville, TN